For the past year Ben's job has been a little frustrating. We've been grateful for the job, of course, and working from home has been super. Honestly, I thought it would be hard or annoying, but really it's allowed for a lot of flexibility for our us and a lot of time for Ben to spend with the boys. Most days he comes upstairs during lunch, or I can leave and run and errand while Hudson is napping. We've all loved it. But we always knew there was a time limit on it, as Polycom kept asking us to move back East. We decided pretty firmly that we wouldn't be moving for this position, it just didn't make sense for a lot of reasons. We were open to moving for a great career opportunity, but not so that he could just do the same thing he was already doing from here (and they wanted us to move to much more expensive areas).
All through the fall we kept getting conflicting information if Polycom was going to stick to the move in January deadline or not. Mid-December it finally officially came down- move to Andover, Massachusetts by Jan 30 or be out of a job. It was a little frustrating to be going through an intense job search during Christmas time (just like last year) when we wanted to just enjoy the magic of the season. But at the same time, focusing on Christ during Christmas helped to calm our nerves and center us on what is really important in life. Ben kept looking and networking and interviewing, but it just seemed to be frustrating and to find one dead end after another.
This whole experience has been a great faith strengthening experience for us. Going into it, I decided that I wanted to make the most of this experience. I wanted to grow and learn and become better from it, not just endure it. I'd say for the most part, it worked. There were days that I felt scared, but I also felt a lot of comfort and a lot of compassion for others. Every time I would feel scared I would remember that everything that matters most was absolutely fine.
Just two weeks shy of our January 30 deadline, Ben was offered a great opportunity with a company called Pragmatic Conferencing. After doing some research into the position and company, as well as negotiating with them, we decided to accept their offer! They have been great to work with so far and have been beyond helpful in bringing Ben on board (even paying for him to fly to LA to renew his passport, and agreeing to put us on insurance benefits day 1 instead of 90 since we have a baby due). Ben will be working as a Business Channel Manager for them, as the contact for Polycom. Polycom sells teleconferencing hardware, Pragmatic sells the cloud based hosting that makes the product work. It was the perfect opportunity Ben was hoping and praying for and we feel like it will be a great step in his career.
The job is ultimately designed to be in Austin, Texas. Pragmatic has generously given us until the end of September to move (which is a great relief to us, moving with a brand new baby sounded so daunting!). Ben will be on the road a lot for the next six months between the offices in Toronto, Andover and Austin, and hopefully home enough to keep things from completely falling apart at home! We also have a verbal agreement from them that if Ben can prove that he can continue to work the job from Utah, they'd be happy to reevaluate the need to move all together- which is what we are hoping for!
So that's the story of what has been going on in our lives for the past month! It's been stressful, faith promoting and ultimately has a happy ending. We feel so very blessed and thankful that this opportunity came up when we needed it the most!
We took the boys out to Pizza Pie Cafe to celebrate (probably not ever Ben or my first choice, but it's one of the boys favorites- mostly because of dessert pizza).
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